IPSWICH TOWN 1 CRYSTAL PALACE 2Joe Royle went into his first league game with Ipswich on the back of a good mid-week win in Europe. The confidence built by their win over Liberec was evident in the much more positive play seen this afternoon.

IPSWICH TOWN 1 CRYSTAL PALACE 2

Joe Royle went into his first league game with Ipswich on the back of a good mid-week win in Europe. The confidence built by their win over Liberec was evident in the much more positive play seen this afternoon.

Crystal Palace took the lead after 19 minutes with a goal from their star striker Andrew Johnson. Johnson has scored a hat trick in his past two consecutive games and was looking to increase that today against Ipswich.

Both teams seemed evenly matched in the first half and were unable to get much of an attacking run. Ipswich equalised after 39 minutes with a goal from Darren Ambrose and went into half time on level pegging.

Ipswich continued to play well in the second half and both teams had some chances. A few holes in the Ipswich defence led to Andy Marshall having to make some amazing saves in order to prevent Palace gaining the advantage, but the equilibrium was maintained.

With about 30 minutes to go, Ipswich gained the upper hand and started to put the Palace defence under pressure, but just couldn't quite make the chances they needed to take the lead, and unfortunately Palace scored again, totally against the flow of play.

For the last few minutes of the game both sides battled well and Town refused to go down without a fight. Both teams were very evenly matched throughout the game, but Palace were more able to capitalise on their opportunities.

Royle won't be pleased with the result, but he should be happy with the way Town played and they now have something they can build on for the mid-week game against Middlesborough.